Fifteen
by Tierfal
Summary: A collection of prompt-based Matt/Mello drabbles: the solemn, the silly, and the "Why so serious?"
1. Friday the 13th

_I've been writing them out of order, so it figures that I'll post them out of THAT order. XD_

_Enjoy. ;)_

* * *

13. Friday the 13th

Mello's soaked through.

There's a petulant twist to his scowl, but mostly he's just miserable—swathed in wet denim and ruined leather, boots squelching, his hair hanging in his eyes. The word Matt thinks is _bedraggled_, and it puts him in mind of cats down wells and the brave singsongy children who fish them out again.

It also has _bed_ in it, and _drag_, and _glad_ if you mix it up a bit.

The rain beats at the windows, jealous that he's repossessed its prize, as he sits Mello down on the couch and starts peeling off the sodden leather vest, which he tosses aside in favor of laying warm kisses down the goosebump-prickled skin of Mello's neck and shoulder.

"I walked under a ladder today of all days," the object of his ministrations mutters. "You know, I thought for _years_ that me stepping on a crack in the sidewalk was what made my mother fall down the stairs."

Matt imagines Mello has broken a lot of mirrors, too—or that they've cracked out of spite upon realizing they can't hold his reflection once he's moved.

By the time Matt has retreated and returned bearing hot chocolate, Mello has shed his jeans, the better to curl up on the couch in the fuzzy red blanket, the color of which makes his eyes stand out like scattered Swarovskis. Matt puts the mug in his hands, and slender fingers curl around the painted ceramic, and then he leans in and slides his arms around the bare waist beneath the blanket. At the same moment, he happens to notice that Mello's damp black boxers are crumpled on the floor by his jeans.

Personally, Matt doesn't think today is unlucky at all.


	2. Out of Sight, Out of Mind

_Author's Note: Forgot to mention that Eltea came up with the crazy-awesome prompts._

_I'm sure you're stunned to see her name mentioned here. XD_

* * *

9. "Out of sight, out of mind."

He stole the picture out of Mello's file just after midnight the day they saw the first broadcast about Kira.

Matt isn't Mello or Near, but he's not dumb, either.

Sometimes, he kind of wishes he was. He might forget that the picture lies, more aggravating than accusatory, in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Under the bed. Among the last few pages of his biology textbook. Buried in video games. Between the mattress and the box-spring.

Exactly one month after Mello drew the front door shut behind him, Matt admits that he can't do this anymore.

But he knows someone who can hide things where no one else will find them.

It'll be a couple years before he sees that photograph again, and by the time he does, he won't need it.

He'll have the real thing.


	3. Shooting Stars

12. Shooting Stars

Mello's hair lies flung across the pillow. His eyes are closed, but his lips are moving.

_Hail Mary, full of grace._

Matt reaches over to touch his cheek, and fringed eyelids lift, and he smiles.

He's bright and sharp and achingly beautiful, and Matt knows and has known that he can't bear to watch this light disappear beyond the horizon.

He makes a wish and takes a chance.

"Mel?"

"Nh?"

"We should just… go."

A faint frown ripples across Mello's forehead. "What?"

Matt pushes himself up on one elbow. "We should just get up and leave. There must be places where they haven't heard of Kira or don't care. We could call Near and tell him everything we know and think we know, and then get on a plane and _go_."

Mello's eyes narrow—confused, not accusatory. "Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know." Matt shifts. "I don't care. Somewhere, anywhere. Anywhere but here."

Mello searches his face. "Why?"

Matt fingers the beads of the crucifix, Mello's pale skin warm against the heel of his hand.

"Because I can't watch this destroy you."

Mello is silent for a long moment, assembling the pieces behind his eyes. He arrives at a decision, and Matt's heart skips twice.

"…it had better be someplace warm."

Matt grins, slowly, but with increasing force, like a freight train gathering momentum. Mello raises an eyebrow at him.

"And _you're_ going to be the one calling Near."


	4. King Midas

_Author's Note: Old review replies will come later._

_Because I SUCK._

_This is one of my favorites, though.  
_

* * *

2. King Midas

Mello turned fifteen three days ago.

It's like some barrier has broken, some dam has cracked, some floodgates have swung open, and everything—_everything_—

Matt takes him on the floor the first time, a mess of arching and writhing, teeth clenched, breath short, and the friction between his skin and the carpet carves angry red burns onto his shoulder-blades, sore spots that chafe beneath his clothes, marks to match the bloody trails he's scoured and scattered among Matt's ribs.

Three days later, the white heat of the memory has bleached the guilt, and their hips brush as Mello pushes past him to get to the closet, and a shudder like an earthquake racks his frame.

Matt's fingertips blaze across his waist, and there are coats at his back and _Matt_ flush against him, and then the bed, and the rumpled tangle of disheveled sheets—

The love—what must be love, what has to be because he's read books, and nothing else would hurt this bad—makes him sick to his stomach where he lies listening to Matt breathe. It's just too _much_, and there's too much other shit all mixed in, and it alternately clenches and churns.

He kisses Matt's forehead and crawls from the bed and to the bathroom, where he stares down the unblinking porcelain and wishes he could vomit up the pain.

Everything he touches turns to sin.


	5. Crayons

_Author's Note: I don't know if they exist._

_I hope they do, because they sound AWESOME._

* * *

5. Crayons

"Look at what I found at the grocery store!" Matt exults, shoving a yellow box about the size of a carton of cigarettes in Mello's face. "_Edible crayons_!"

Mello ignores the brightly-colored cardboard an inch and a half from his nose and gives Matt a sardonic look.

"What," he inquires pointedly, "in the _hell_ do you intend to do with edible crayons?"

"Eat them," Matt reports smugly. "_Obviously_."

Mello finally slaps the box aside, the better to return his attention to his laptop.

"Did you get an edible coloring book?" he mutters.

Matt is suddenly very close, and his breath is hot and moist where it curls in the shell of Mello's ear.

"That," he answers, "would be you."

Mello flinches.

He only goes along because it's downright impossible to be productive when Matt's pouting.

That's the only reason.

Really.

Matt peels the paper impatiently off of a dark pink crayon, and then he drags his tongue up the length of it.

"Ooh," he remarks, pleasantly surprised. "Raspberry."

Before Mello can overstate an eye-roll, Matt has seized him to push his ratty tee-shirt all the way up to his neck—and then has commenced delineating the contours of Mello's chest with slow, deliberate strokes.

In about thirty seconds, give or take, Mello is sprawled on the bed, sucking on the impressively rich chocolate crayon, and Matt is kneeling over him, drawing languid crayon lines and licking them off again.

…who the hell thought of _edible crayons_?

And how can Mello meet this person to shake their hand?


	6. Marshmallow Peeps

_Author's Note: Super-special additional Easter update! You may now rejoice._

_This is another example of why Eltea is secretly related to Matt._

_(Is it normal to come up with puns about Peeps when you're taking a shower?)_

* * *

14. Marshmallow Peeps

Saturday evening before Easter, and Mello was off to the Vigil.

He was, in essence, the best-worst Catholic he knew, possibly the best-worst Catholic of all time.

Though Vito Corleone was stiff competition.

He paused in the kitchen, noting Matt bent over the table, wire, cardboard, glue, and scissors spread about his elbows, something uncannily bright and yellow in the middle of the explosion of inexplicable creativity.

Mello stared.

"What are you doing to those Peeps?" he asked.

"They're Peups," Matt replied—calmly, and completely nonsensically.

Mello considered backing away slowly, but curiosity won out. "They're _whats_?"

"Peups," Matt repeated. "If they were people, they could be Peeps, because it rhymes, but it's '_peuple_' in French, so they're Peups."

Mello went back to staring. "Why are they French?"

Matt raised a Peep with angry eyebrows drawn on. "Because," he answered, "this is Robespeepierre."

Mello stared at the bizarre construction on the tabletop—and, sure enough, a length of wire suspended a tinfoil guillotine blade from a popsicle-stick frame. There was a severed Peep head on one side of the blade and a matching Peep body on the other side.

"You're sick," Mello decided.

"I will be once I eat all the survivors," Matt remarked.

Rolling his eyes, Mello proceeded to the door.

When he returned the next morning—eyes gritty, knees sore, more than willing to trade his newly-cleansed immortal soul for a chocolate bar—Matt was still hard at work. Morbidly curious again, Mello went over to look.

Matt had arranged a few old crone Peeps, who were possessed of wispy cotton-candy hair, evil expressions, and collections of severed Peep heads—which were now elaborately decorated (or desecrated) with red frosting. Robespeepierre had earned a cotton-candy wig, and one of the crone Peeps drove a My Little Pony-drawn wagon past him and below a portcullis made of toothpicks.

Mello did not want to know whence Matt had acquired the My Little Pony.

"You've been reading _A Tale of Two Cities_ again," he concluded.

"Nope," Matt responded cheerfully. "_The Scarlet Pimpernel_." He pushed shredded-coconut hay off of the bed of the wagon to reveal a small treasure trove of Cadbury eggs.

Mello stared again. He was fairly certain that staring was the only logical reaction.

Matt winked and proffered the chocolate. "Happy Easter, Mel."


	7. Karma

16. Karma

It wasn't too long ago that he told a blond boy not to go.

It wasn't too long ago that white hands splayed on his chest and shoved him into the dresser, and his ears rang for the screams.

The words echoed for a long time after the headache went away.

Now there's white gauze, but the footsteps are steadier today, and they've directed their trajectory towards the door.

Not a chance in Special Hell.

This time, he doesn't tell a blond boy anything.

This time, he lets his hands speak for him, and he pushes Mello down on the bed, springs squealing.

This time, he ignores the startled accusation in the bright blue eyes and kisses his victim, kisses him roughly, kisses him hard.

This time, he digs his fingers into the hot flesh past the edges of the bandage, because this time, it would kill him to let go.

He draws back, lips bruised, heart healing, and smirks down at the amazement and the incredulity and the stunned appreciation.

"Karma's a bitch," he tells a blond boy; "isn't it?"


	8. Little Red Riding Hood

11. Little Red Riding Hood

Mello parts his hair around his neck and tucks it behind his ears, the better to raise his hood and settle it just so, dense white fur spreading tendrils like the arms of some soft anemone.

Matt considers the metaphor, wondering what he's been smoking and why he didn't notice he was smoking it.

He gets up and swaggers over to blow at Mello's face—ostensibly to set the fur to rippling; actually to make Mello wrinkle his nose.

"Don't get lost out there," he cautions, tugging the coat's zipper two teeth higher, "Red."

Mello rolls his eyes but cedes a fur-tickled kiss before he goes.

Matt loiters by the window and watches him tear up the sidewalk four floors below, the last gleam of sunset winking on red leather.

He's got chocolate instead of butter, and there's no grandmother to speak of, but the wolves are out in force.

Then again, Little Red Riding Hood didn't have a gun.


	9. Let Me Enlighten You

_Author's Note: It's from the song "Prayer," by Disturbed, by the way._

* * *

3._ Let me enlighten you/This is the way I pray._

Whatever criticisms are muttered behind his back, Roger is cut out for this.

Matt thinks so, anyway, because Roger doesn't think it's_ just that he's upset_, and Roger takes him to the doctor, who prescribes him Valium for the panic attacks.

It's harder to get that shit out in the world, though, on his own, paying out of his pocket, and when he does acquire a little plastic bottle full of hope, he tends to sell its contents in ones and twos. This is L.A. He needs that fucking air conditioning.

He read online that nicotine can act as a trigger, but he finds that the opposite is true: he finds that it slows him down and sets him straight and clears his head. He finds that it pulls him together and pushes him forward.

Whatever the case, Matt knows what this is. He knows what this means. He knows about the psychological consequences of abandonment.

He always figured Mello would someday destroy him from the inside out.

But that's that, and this is this, and he's alive so far. That's more than he can say, with any certainty, of Mello, who has disappeared.

Every time Matt flicks the lighter, every time the blue-orange flame jumps skyward, he thinks of it as a hidden vigil.

As a prayer.


	10. Why So Serious?

_Author's Note: The REALLY sad part is that I wrote all of this from memory._

…_if you haven't seen "The Dark Knight," give up now. XD_

* * *

1. "WHY SO SERIOUS?"

Mello's face was dark, and his eyes were the opposite—lit from within, the maniacal fervor tinged with anger.

"I'm _serious_, Matt," he hissed.

Matt blinked at him, then turned a grin into a leer.

"Why so _serious_?" he inquired, smushing all the right letters together to do the voice.

Mello's eyes narrowed, and he gestured violently to the left side of his face. "Want to know how I got these scars?" he demanded.

"Lie," Matt retorted, "like I lied."

"You can be the outcast," Mello shot back.

"I certainly hope not," Matt replied.

Mello fought to keep a straight face and failed.

"I fucking hate you," he announced.

"I love you, Harvey!" Matt cried.

"You are the biggest geek in the _universe_," Mello groaned.

Matt beamed at him. "Want to see a magic trick?" he asked brightly.


	11. Nevermore

15. _"Nevermore"_

_Never_—that's a hell of a long time.

It's funny—well, you know, "_funny_"—that there was such an air to Wammy's—an aftertaste of Never-Never Land, a flavor of never-grow-up, of never-change. And so when things _did_ change—when things changed in an instant, and the rug went out from under… it threw you for a loop. Threw you for three, and the next thing you knew, you were swooping through a fighter jet's evasive procedure, and you didn't have your harness on right.

_Never again_—a prohibition, but this time, it's enforced.

Matt loved L. Maybe not in the same way Mello did, not so hard his heart was just waiting, cracked from the strain, and ready to fall to pieces, but Mello hits everything at a run, and that includes the worship of secular idols. (Mello doesn't think that joke's very funny. Near does. Near has a great sense of humor, really; it's weird.)

Matt misses the Back Then, the Back in the Day, the Once Upon a Time, misses the three of them sprawling on L's bed as the world's greatest detective sat curled in his desk chair, ignoring the emails and instant messages, and told stores about the incredible places he'd been. Moscow, Prague, Provence; Amsterdam, New Guinea, New York; Rio de Janeiro and Mozambique; the people, the buildings, the way the cities felt and smelled and breathed; who he'd bested, how he'd won, the tactics, the feints, the ripostes—and the adventures unfolded before their eyes, narrated by the hero, an Odysseus who carried an invulnerable shield emblazoned with a gleaming gothic _L_.

That's what Matt wanted to be—the man behind the shield, the _mind_ behind. People scare him, sometimes; they're cold and unpredictable, and he's been put down and shut up and pushed away too many times to trust them now.

L proves that you don't have to trust them—you just have to use them. And if you're good enough, you can do that without even letting them see your face.

L shows Matt what he can be, if he wants to. If he works at it.

But then L's gone.

It's like another foreign case at first—and it has been, up until then, up until they hear. L hasn't visited in a long time, and the webcam chats had gotten shorter and more terse until they simply stopped, but they've seen that before. But now—now, at last, he has… faded out completely. He has faded away. He's gone, and he's not coming back. He's never coming back.

Mello takes it like a knife to the gut—serrated steel. It's a good thing Matt gets him, gets him _too_ well, finds Mello's complexity just so simple, because there's blond hair in the boy's face, and he's crying too hard to explain.

_That's it. I'm going. I'm going to find him, and I'm going to kill him, with my own two hands, or I'm going to die trying._

And then he's gone.

Mello fades, too, a little, as the days grind by, but the holes he leaves are bigger, and Matt tries but can't quite patch them back together.

Mello has always worn black—black cotton, head to toe, and he didn't bitch about it even in the summer, which is part of why Matt figures he's a masochist.

But when Matt finds him now—as he grimaces despite himself at all the smeared, splattered blood; as he sifts carefully through the rubble trapping the long, slender legs as if he's extricating some ancient culture gone extinct; as he flinches at the very thought of the kind of pain it would take to make Mello hiss through gritted teeth—some small, smothered part of him just wants to laugh.

Mello's not mourning his parents anymore—it's L now. And L… L Mello will mourn in silver and black, in the fire's gleam on his shining sides, in the animal heat and the unabashed egotism. L Mello will mourn with everything he is and wants to be.

But the funny thing—the funny thing is that Mello's always had it wrong.

There's blood and ash and dust all over Matt's defenseless shirt, but you can still make out the stripes—even stripes, exchanging, so that you can't tell whether black or white was laid down first. This way, you can mourn, but you can integrate the future, too. The hope.

Besides. L loved Oreos.

Of course, Mello's never been much for balance. Near's the same way, but on the other side, which his why Matt spent so much of his youth feeling like the fulcrum of a see-saw.

He doesn't tell Mello that he would have gone to Near, too—would have dropped everything and run just as fast, would have cradled the little white body just as gently to his chest. He loves them both, in ways that fit them, and he doesn't think there's anything wrong with that.

But Mello's the one who called—Mello, in oil-slick black. Mello, who has a too-short childhood of practice turning fear and loneliness to hate.

Five days after he's on his feet, though, Mello brings home a slightly battered leather coat—Matt doesn't ask where he got it or found it or retrieved it from—with soft black feathers all around the hood.

After Mello has passed out on the bed that night, lying on his back, hands folded on his chest over the crucifix, Matt gives into the impulse that has dogged him all day, approaches the chair where the coat is draped, and strokes the feathers, once, then twice.

He's kind of suspected all along that ravens, too, have down feathers underneath.

_Nevermore_.

And _Always_.


	12. The Cloud Forest

_Author's Note: My browser search history is extremely incriminating._

_Wikipedia the title; the prompt was the second picture from the bottom._

* * *

4. The Cloud Forest

It fades things. It grinds the sharp edges off his jagged world, and if he runs a risk to get there—well, that sounds pretty fair.

Can't get something for nothing, not these days.

He tugs the knotted leather laces to release his makeshift tourniquet, and he lies back and waits for peace.

One moment more of agonizing indifference, and then it comes—then it swells about him like the cotton swells to hold the thrice-blessed solution gallivanting through his withering veins; then it swells like warm, humid mist.

That's what he always finds first, before the dull-sweet emptiness of the high—the mist. The Cloud Forest.

Maybe he saw a picture in a textbook once, in the world that he remembers, that was kinder, that was just. Maybe he made it up.

It doesn't matter now. Nothing really matters now, and that's the point.

The forest is green, a deep, rich green that tends to black, disappearing into the smothering expanses of shifting gray-white. The sunlight reaches blinding fingers that can't break through.

And there's a bridge, a bridge like an apparition, suspended from nothing, leading into the heart of the depthless fog.

As he gazes unseeing at the track marks up and down his arms, as he listens to the slow, gentle breathing of someone sleeping-almost-dead, Mello thinks that maybe somebody's waiting at the other end.


	13. Silver

_Author's Note: This is actually the first one of these that I wrote. Crazy._

* * *

7. Silver

The night is silver, but Mello's hair gleams gold.

They don't call it the gold standard for nothing.

Matt feels cheap here, in this dingy alleyway, dressed in cotton and denim among the leather and lace—which is ironic, because he's the only one who doesn't have something to sell.

Mello has pushed a cigarette between almost-familiar lips, and orange embers light his face, so dimly you can almost convince yourself you saw something more beautiful once. One more step shatters that illusion, and Matt reads it like neon in the skyline—Mello's smoking for the smoke, for the cover, for the automatic enigma. Matt's not sure if he sees it because of his personal experience with nicotine addiction or because Mello has always been the only thing he ever cared about.

By the looks of things, Mello has been outfitted by the devil himself—who was also kind enough to provide the pair of hipbones jutting out above the low-swooping hem, a segue to the shameless _V_ of laces that all the lines and angles indicate.

It should be easy to hate him, to hate him for loving and leaving and never looking back, but Matt has always had a gangrenous soft spot for the little bastard in black.

Though Mello's not so little anymore.

Matt wants to fuck him or kill him, and he honestly can't tell which sounds better right now.

But he knows, deep down but rising, that this is not the same boy who left him behind. That this Mello is not _the_ Mello, not quite, no more than he is still buried alive in Mello's sheets with his world melting to run hotly down his cheeks.

Smoke curls around Mello's chin, and the fading bruises on cheekbones and jaw announce that somebody learned to hurt Mello before he had a chance to hurt them.

Matt lights his own cigarette, and Mello parses the shadows where his visitor stands. Smoke drifts, and the dark plays on Mello's face, and Matt meets powder-blue eyes, which are still too young.

"Well?"

The voice is a little lower, but that could just be two years of cigarettes and seduction.

"'Well' what?" Matt counters. Mello's winning out over the cigarette, and Matt's heart is trying to break through his ribs.

Mello would undoubtedly blow smoke in his face if they were ever so slightly closer together.

"You're here for a reason, aren't you?" is the query.

He would be better prepared if this had been intentional. As it is, he's running on Gatorade and testosterone; the cocktail of the two is the only reason his knees didn't give way the second recognition registered.

"Just walking by," he answers, and part of him wants to follow through.

Mello shifts to disagree, and Matt opens his mouth to defend, and they both see the other and stop.

"Why the hell'd you have to do that?" Mello mutters, pitching his cigarette to the cracked cement as if it's Matt's skull that fractures on impact. The embers send forlorn wisps of messengers to kiss the blue-black sky.

He's mad, because Matt has found him, and Matt knows all the warmth that's gone and all the pain that isn't.

"Small town," Matt remarks, "Los Angeles."

Mello's eyes dart cold, and he bites back the expletive behind his curled lip—a new habit, which Matt assumes has been acquired because even Mello bleeds if you hit him hard enough.

Matt has half a mind to try that out and see.

Most of the other half wants to walk away before he forgets two years of cigarette ash and self-destructive anger and gives up everything again.

"What do you want?" Mello asks, and Matt hesitates, and thinks it over.

He thinks it over for a long time, for minutes that trickle through the cracks between his fingers, one second tumbling after another, the distant streetlamp looming, because Mello is still the only thing he doesn't hate—can't, won't, never will, though he sure as hell won't stop trying.

He takes a long drag on his cigarette, and then he shrugs.

"You," he says, "and fuck all else."

Mello smiles, and he's trying for sardonic, but they both know it's real.

"Dumbshit," he says.

"Always," Matt replies.


	14. Garden

10. Garden

When Matt first arrives at Wammy's, he doesn't leave the house for three full days.

He has his DS. It's okay. DS; okay. Synonyms.

The first night, he explores the whole of the place in sockfeet, by the light of the cell phone he'd immediately been given, and promptly finds the cabinet in the kitchen where Roger keeps spare batteries. He takes a few double-As for the next time his DS runs out of juice—which it will, inevitably, though it's a darn sturdy little machine. Reliable.

He has his DS. He's okay.

By the third day, of course, they have arranged his schedule with the tutors and set up all his subjects, integrated him into their system of learning, tailored as it is to the quixotic and over-intelligent. He's quixotic—at least a little. His mind doesn't work the same way as people's do Outside. That's why he's here.

He still has his DS in his book-bag when the cook's niece, who is fresh-faced and a little too blunt to crush on, entices him into the kitchen for cookies and milk. He looks up at her, through the lens-barrier of his round glasses, and hopes that she doesn't want to talk about it.

She doesn't ask him to.

She deals with all the others, too; she must know the drill. She must know when to ask and when to let the cookies say it all.

So it's okay.

But the third day, after he's dutifully seen the tutors and told them the things they want to hear, Mr. Wammy knocks on the bedroom door and wants to know if Matt has a bit of time.

Matt doesn't trust him.

Mail doesn't want to be alone.

Wammy lets him bring his backpack. The old man leads the way down the stairs and out—out into the sun, the brightness, the garden.

Wammy teaches him how to distribute vegetable seeds and how to ease the flowers, which come half-grown, out of the plastic packages where they cluster like eggs in a carton, and their heavy heads sway as Matt lifts them one by one. Wammy teaches him how to loosen their roots, how to set them apart in spade-hollowed holes, how to pat the dirt down around them—how to bury the parts below, behind; how to hide the source so that only the beauty shows.

When you just have the seeds, though, you have to wait. Those will be beautiful, too—later. You have to have patience. You have to give them time to figure out what to hide and what to let the world see.

There's dirt streaked up and down Matt's hands, smudged on his nose, smeared on his glasses. There's dirt on Mr. Wammy's glasses, too, and they look down at their work and shake earthy hands. Wammy's grip is warm and firm but gentle, like the sun beating on Matt's back.

And this, too, is okay.

He forgets who fought in some of the wars, forgets what the formulas for conic sections are—but he remembers how to love something unresponsive until the flower blooms.

He runs one finger down Mello's unmoving hand, tracing winding trails, imagining they're left by sweet, rich soil that smells like renewal. Like hope.

He strokes gold strands away from the gauze, disentangling them, cautious but not anxious, because it's okay.

Mr. Wammy taught him that you have to wait.


	15. Foul Deeds

_Author's Note: Please treat it with respect, and please don't tell me anything too personal in a review. PMs are welcome._

* * *

6. _Foul deeds will rise/Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes._ –Hamlet I-ii

Mail Jeevas is a table lamp.

No, light is necessary.

He's a puppy dog.

No… kicked and whimpering, yeah, but you have to take care of your pets, or they leave you, rather than the other way around.

He's a chocolate bar.

Yeah.

Cheap chocolate, the kind that never sells out at the gas station minimart, the kind that's just enough to get you through, 'cause it's still chocolate, and that's what matters. The kind you eat on autopilot. The kind you just consume, without appreciating it at all.

Mello licks his fingers and drops another crumpled wrapper to the floor.

Matt stretches to shove a warehouse-discount-store-size box of Easy Mac up on top of the fridge, and something in his back twinges, and his breath comes out _Ah—!_, and the corner of the cardboard hits the bottle of maple syrup, nudges it off the edge, and sends it crashing to the counter, where it shatters and splatters and splashes the toaster and the microwave at once.

Matt stares at the shards of glass now floating in the oozing syrup sea and wants to cry, because it's crying or going over and punching Mello in the mouth. But Matt saw the bruises on Mello's hips and ribs, saw that this scar was the deepest but not the first, sees now that Mello slips into his quasi-parallel universe to plot and plan and research because believing that he can do this is the only thing that keeps him together. Matt sees that it's not even so much that Mello's letting Matt take care of him as that caretaking doesn't even cross his mind.

Matt gathers himself as he gathers the pieces, and picking the glass out is fun, because it's like Russian roulette, whether or not he'll prick his fingers. A few wet paper towels and some dish soap and a building ache in his knees, and you'd never know that something had broken here.

He tosses a plastic bag of chocolate bars at Mello's feet, sings _You're welcome!_ in his mind, and goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. He doesn't lock it, because some part of him's still hoping that someone will open it and find him and know.

The bathtub faucet's two settings are Scalding and Freezing, and he prefers the former by a small margin most of the time. It cools off as he sits and prods idly at the bruises on his knees, swiping soapsuds over them until they disappear. He leans back and thinks about how streaked and grimy all the tiles are. He needs to find an old toothbrush to scour the grout.

Humming softly, Matt takes the razorblade in slippery fingers and draws its edge across his wrist.

It's funny how it's like when Mello paints his nails—when Mello used to paint his nails. It's easier to do the left side, because Matt's right-handed, so he has more control.

He carves lovingly, the spluttering of the faucet drowning out his gasps when he gouges a little too deep, and as he breaks the scabs on Sunday's handiwork, it feels like he's cutting himself free.

Pain makes him feel human.

He's making gills. He opens them here, on the tender, half-healed skin on the insides of his arms, and then he can breathe.

When he's bleeding, he knows he's alive. He wouldn't otherwise. Mello wouldn't notice either way. Matt's a fixture. Matt is wallpaper. Matt fades. Or he would, except that the blood is bright, like his hair, like Mello's eyes, and anything that hurts this much must be real.

And now his outsides match his insides. That's fair.

It makes him happy, a distant happy like cotton-candy insulation for his heart, as he winds the gauze around his wrists like a sports player and tapes it down at the end. It makes him happy that he has a secret. It makes him happy that there's something Mello doesn't know.

Mello thinks he sees straight through Matt—thinks he knows him up and down, thinks he's translucent and dependable, which is why he doesn't care if he forgets that Matt is here, and real, with a heartbeat and a soul.

Then again, maybe Mello doesn't think about souls anymore.

In any case, Matt hides the razorblade under the canister of Comet, because Mello could not be moved to pick up a cleaning product unless his life was on the line, and the odds of that happening in the foreseeable future are fairly low.

He leaves it close enough to the spare rolls of toilet paper, though, that Mello might knock it over reaching for something else, because the part of him that doesn't lock the door, the part of him that doesn't wash the tub, the part of him that leaves the gauze out on the counter and doesn't explain, wants Mello to find out. Part of him—a lot of him—wants Mello to learn it, see it, and know that he has failed his only friend.

Part of him wants Mello to hurt as much as he does.


	16. 28 Days

_Author's Note: It's only 1,200 words, but it looks like more because of the formatting… I promise!_

_And… this was going to be the last one, but then I wrote another one. So… second-to-last. :)_

* * *

8. 28 Days

_Day 1: _Dug my ex-best friend/soul-mate/first-and-only love out of a pile of rubble. Dusty. Bloody. Gross.

(So fucking scary I almost cried.)

Mello, please keep breathing.

…my poor fucking _car_.

_Day 2:_ Sat at the bedside for nine hours tallying heartbeats (lost count). Held him down when he woke up and flipped the fuck out (typical). Dragged him to the bathroom. Gave him some soft clothes. Got the door slammed in my face.

(God, I've missed that crazy bitch.)

_Days 3 – 6:_ Bought a shit-ton of chocolate. Hacked police servers (highly-illegal, extremely fun). Got my ear yelled off.

Again.

(Made him drink apple juice when his throat hurt.)

_Day 7:_ Sacrificed a year's worth of WoW subscriptions to buy a leather jacket.

My fucking account is going to expire.

(How can he be so beautiful?)

_Day 8:_ "…Matt?"

"Yeah?"

"…never mind… What the fuck, is that _Tetris_? What part of 'fucking _dictator_ at large' do you not understand?"

"I understand the first part…"

(I think I heard a "Thank you" in there somewhere.)

_Days 9 – 14:_ The work is really fucking boring. Codes, codes, codes; script, script, script; firewalls all going Jericho and Troy… Anybody could do this shit.

But at night, when Mello can't sleep, he lies on his back with his hands folded on his chest and talks.

Just talks.

About everything.

So that's all right.

_Day 15:_ Pulled something/cricked something/bent something leaning funny to turn the TV on. Back hurts like a bitch.

(Some things heal easier than others.)

No fucking way I was going to sleep on the floor, though. Crawled in next to Mello, who didn't even flinch.

(Not sure what I was looking for.)

(Might have found it.)

_Day 16:_ Waking up next to Mello mostly involves getting a fuckload of hair in your face.

Romantic.

_Day 17:_ Love blows.

(Mello knows all about the latter.)

_Day 18:_ Gave up on the floor again last night. Woke up with Mello's arm across my chest and his face against my neck. Kira almost got some unexpected help.

Pretended not to notice; went back to sleep. He'd like the escape route.

Woke up again, and he was watching his hand smooth my shirt.

(Like I was something precious.)

_Day 19:_ Coffee and a cigarette.

Figures Mello only drinks the good stuff.

They spoiled him in the Mafia. Fucking princess.

Kira's an amateur; Starbucks is the one taking over the fucking world.

_Day 20:_ Still sleeping in his bed.

Sounds like it means something when you put it that way.

You'd think I was a fucking puppy for all the difference it seems to make.

(In a lot of ways, you'd be right.)

_Day 21:_ Vodka and a cigarette. Even more effective.

Gets you weird looks on the street, though.

(Haven't you people ever seen a fool in love before?)

Put Mello's coffee on the nightstand, just out of reach—otherwise all that morning-cat stretching would knock it over, and he'd give me hell about it for the next hour instead of cleaning the carpet.

"Carpet." Good joke. More like crumpled chocolate wrappers and a rainbow assortment of discarded energy drink cans.

It's kind of weird to get drunk in your own kitchen.

Did you know that half a bottle of vodka over the course of a couple hours will get you to throw up almost immediately?

Gets me to, anyway.

You learn something new every day.

(Mello pounded on the door for ten minutes even after I explained the circumstances, such as they were.)

(He probably just wanted a shower.)

_Day 22:_ "Matt."

"What?"

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Lock me out."

"It's my house." Relatively speaking.

"Yeah, but—well, Christ, I could've held your hair back or something."

Has to be an act.

(Or I'm totally fucked.)

_Day 23:_ Mello was gone when I woke up. The sheets were already cool.

Half-dressed, wholly given over to dizzying panic, I hit the kitchen at a run only to discover him sitting at the table carousing with the remaining vodka.

I don't know what it is about that kitchen.

I tried to take the bottle away, and he leapt up and danced out of my reach.

Literally.

(Fuck.)

Appeal to his work ethic: "Weren't you planning to get a bunch of shit done today?"

He was singing.

Appeal to his pride: "You don't want me to see you like this, do you?"

In _French_.

Appeal to his… sex appeal? "You look pretty bad."

He laughed.

Not that I can blame him; we both knew it wasn't true.

Cradling the bottleneck, he sashayed a little closer—a lot closer—right up to me, with about two inches to spare. Vodka-breath and bright eyes and tangled-silky hair.

(He always was a cheater.)

"Do I really?" he inquired. "You like it."

(Smart, too.)

"You're drunk," I noted.

"And?"

"You're going to hate yourself tomorrow for acting like this. Maybe by tonight."

He stared at me blankly for a long moment, ostensibly uncomprehending—but could you ever tell, with Mello?

I sighed, leaned forward, buried my fingers in his beautiful hair, and kissed his forehead.

"You're a lunatic, Mel. Go back to bed."

_Day 24:_ Mello doesn't do shame.

(Could've guessed that from the wardrobe.)

He does irritability.

But then, he does irritability for everything.

He ignored me all day—because he didn't want me to pay attention to him, I think, as opposed to the other way around—and dedicated his affections to the computer screen.

But he did start talking again that night.

("I'm scared" somehow says everything.)

(Strange eloquence is nothing new for Mello.)

(He must have heard my heart beating that close up.)

_Day 25:_ "We're out of chocolate again."

"Eat your dinner."

"Pizza's really not that much better than chocolate as far as nutrition goes."

"Fuck you."

Long pause.

(Shit.)

I covered my slice in a hot-pepper avalanche and pushed the empty packets aside. Fascinating work. Had to be perfect. Required my complete focus. The mere thought of ingesting all those peppers made my cheeks warm.

(Real convincing.)

_Day 26:_ "I'm hungry."

"There's more pizza in the fridge."

"I need chocolate."

"I thought _I_ was the addict here."

"C'mon, Matt."

"I'm tired."

"You're _lazy_. Come on."

"Why don't you?"

"You know I can't."

"I'm _tired_."

"C'mon, Matt."

Tune him out.

"Please?"

…the bastard.

_Day 27:_ Slim white fingers were curled in my shirt when I woke up.

For some reason, it didn't occur to me that disentangling them would require me to take Mello's hand in both of mine.

Or it didn't until he opened his eyes.

(_This isn't what it looks like._)

He _must_ have felt my heart pounding when he curled his fingers tighter.

And as he drew me in.

And as he crushed our sleep-numbed mouths together.

It was all downhill from there.

(_This is _exactly_ what it looks like._)

(…finally.)

_Day 28:_ "Matt?"

"Mello?"

"I want chocolate."

"There's a ton in the kitchen."

"That's a million miles away."

"And you call _me_ lazy?"

"Yes. Get off your ass and get me some chocolate."

"If anything, you're _my_ bitch—"

"Mine's sore."

"…you're a horrible person."

Dragged in for another kiss.

"But you love me."

There was a gleam of desperate hope in his wild eyes alongside all the half-mad arrogance.

"More than Link, Leon, and life itself," I answered.

"You're my bitch."

"You're _my_ bitch."

(We're each other's bitches, really.)

(I can live with that.)


	17. The Last Word

_Author's Note: The End._

* * *

The Last Word

Matt is the only thing I stand to lose.

(And he wonders why I left him behind.)

I was stronger then than I am now. This time… I'll be bringing him down with me.

(And he wonders why I believe in heaven.)

You know how in job interviews, they'll ask you those stupid "If you were" questions? They weren't too concerned with those sorts of protocols in the Mafia or anything, but… I've always wished someone would ask me what kind of bird I'd be.

Immolation, regeneration, and here we are.

And here's Matt, promising me that I can do anything I set my mind to, _'cause, c'mon, second in the world ain't bad_.

He grins when his grammar makes me twitch.

If there's time to remember, it's his grin that I'll be thinking of.

And his hands, and his mouth, and his eyes.

People always ignored Matt, because he was quiet and inconspicuous—because he didn't set the curve, like Near did, or bitch about Near setting the curve, like I did. It would be pretty fucking ludicrous to call myself a good judge of character, but I do give myself a great deal of credit for knowing, in the first instant, that I could trust him with my secrets and my life.

I have never met someone as unconditionally dedicated as Matt.

But… that's not where it ends. Because it's not like he's just _here_, it's not like he's a stand-in and a sounding-board and a punching bag; he's _Matt_. He pisses me off and riles me up and calms me down again, because he can and he wants to. He coddles me like a Hollywood socialite with a handbag-sized terrier—and believe me, we saw enough of those to know—but he doesn't let me walk on him. He takes the lead when he has to, when it counts, so that I can follow. So that I can let my guard down and _be_.

_That's_ faith.

That's what he gives me.

(And he wonders why I love him more than I can afford.)

Christ, Matt… this world never deserved you in the first place.

And neither did I.


End file.
